ABOUT US Providence Hospital, located in downtown Columbia, is a 247-bed hospital founded in 1938 by the Sisters of Charity of Saint Augustine to minister to the community, in both body and spirit. The facility is best known for the expertise in cardiac care it provides through Providence Heart Institute, which serves as a nationally recognized referral center for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular care, however, is only one center of excellence at Providence. The physicians and staff at Providence also provide extraordinary care in a variety of other fields, including general surgery, orthopedics, internal medicine, ophthalmology, emergency medicine, nuclear medicine and related diagnostic services, rehabilitation services, and occupational medicine. The hospital's lifesaving efforts are significantly enhanced by the Providence Life Reach helicopter service, the state's first hospital-based emergency helicopter program, which has transported nearly 10,000 patients throughout the Carolinas and Georgia since its inaugural flight in 1985. In all cases, the people of Providence are widely recognized for their compassion, in addition to their professionalism. They capture beautifully the spirit of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine who founded Providence so many years ago. Download a Fact Sheet on Sisters of Charity Providence Hospitals [PDF] Our Mission Our mission is to meet the health care needs of the community by an expression of Christian concern for the sick, suffering and dying; to manifest love, truth and justice in health care; and to promote the advancement and application of new knowledge about health care. Our Vision Sisters of Charity Providence Hospitals is a Catholic, faith-based, healing community whose people are called by God to provide compassionate, loving care. Through unparalleled skill, competency, and stewardship, our people develop and sustain innovative centers of excellence to serve the health care needs of our communities. We commit ourselves to the values of: Respect that values dignity and sacredness of life from conception to death. Compassion that comes from the heart, is expressed in concern, empathy and support, and leads us to respond to persons experiencing need, pain, suffering and loss. Collaboration that fosters the sharing of gifts and talents, encourages interaction, empowers others for service and facilitates networking with individuals and organizations. Courage that identifies need, explores options with integrity, makes difficult decisions wisely and takes risks in responding creatively to human needs. Justice that develops right relationships, seeks the common good, addresses needs of the poor and vulnerable, and acts as responsible stewards of all resources. Our History An Extraordinary Act of Faith The opening of Providence Hospital in Columbia, SC in 1938 was the result of an extraordinary act of faith by an extraordinary collection of people. Father Martin C. Murphy of St. Peter's Church, with little more than a fervent belief that Columbia and South Carolina needed the kind of quality health care synonymous with Catholic hospitals, purchased an 18-acre tract in the heart of the state's capital city for the new hospital. Columbia businessman James B. Younginer donated the down payment for the property. Interestingly, he was not Catholic, but he was so impressed with the treatment his wife had received in a Catholic hospital in California, he thought the people of South Carolina deserved the same type of faith-based care. And perhaps the greatest manifestation of faith was that of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine, a Catholic order in Ohio that mortgaged its motherhouse in Cleveland to finance the new hospital in Columbia, a city the Sisters had never even seen. But when the Sisters of Charity founded Providence, they established more than just a new hospital. They also established an extraordinary commitment to the lives of the people of our community.